Tag Archives: chocolate

Travel/Food

Homemade Tru Fru recipe review

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By: Alice Rapacz and Evie Beaumaster

If you’re anything like us, you have tried Tru Fru and loved it. Like Tru Fru, other frozen chocolate dipped fruits are very good but they leave quite a dent in your pocket! We decided to try to make our own and to see if we could make something comparable, but for a smaller price.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of raspberries (or other fruits we used strawberries)
  • 1 cup of white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup of dark chocolate chips
  • 2 teaspoons of coconut oil

To make the homemade Tru Fru, we chose to use strawberries as our fruit. We started by cutting the stems off our strawberries, coring them, and cutting them in half. You want to make sure that your strawberries are completely dry because when you freeze them, they will stick together if they are wet.

After the strawberries are all cut and washed, we put them on a baking sheet to freeze. We covered the baking sheet with parchment paper and made sure that the strawberries weren’t touching each other.

After about 3 hours, the strawberries were fully frozen. We kept them in the freezer while we prepared the chocolates. In two microwave safe bowls add the chocolates (separately) and a tablespoon of coconut oil. Microwave the white chocolate chips first, before doing the milk/dark chocolate, we chose dark. Microwave in 30 second intervals mixing in between each one.

Once fully melted we pulled out the frozen strawberries and added them into a bowl so we could put our dipped strawberries on the baking sheet. We used a fork to dip the strawberries in the chocolate and shook off the extra chocolate so that there would only be a thin layer of chocolate on each strawberry.

After half the strawberries were coated in white chocolate, we had to melt more chocolate to finish the rest of the strawberries and continue dipping the strawberries.

Once they all were coated in white chocolate, we moved onto the dark chocolate. We used the same process of melting, and because the strawberries were frozen to start, the chocolate hardened onto the strawberries so we did not have to put them back into the freezer. After they were all dipped, they were ready to eat!

In the end, the strawberries were really good. Since we used a fork to shake off extra chocolate, there was a nice and thin layer on the strawberries. If it was thicker, it would have been really hard to bite. If you leave the strawberries out for around 3 minutes before eating, it makes the strawberries thaw just enough so they are easier to eat.

The dark chocolate evens out the sweetness from the white chocolate, and the two pair well with the strawberry. Since they are frozen, they would be a perfect sweet treat for on a hot summer day. The strawberries are sweet and fresh, with the chocolate added, they are really good. We made the strawberries when some of our friends were with us. They all really liked them and thought they were a perfect treat to end the night.

Overall, the recipe was pretty easy to follow and the strawberries tasted really good. We think that this recipe is a great way to save some money if you also like Tru Fru. We made around 40 strawberries and the total cost was around $11.78. A typical Tru Fru bag comes with around 16 strawberries for $6.99. For the homemade strawberries it cost around 30 cents per strawberry, the Tru Fru cost around 43 cents. While this is not that big of a difference, we both thought it was worth it. Not only was it fun to make, but we also got to have a delicious treat too. If you ever want a fun and delicious treat to make, we definitely recommend this homemade Tru Fru recipe.

The original recipe!

https://www.liveeatlearn.com/frozen-chocolate-raspberries/

Travel/Food

BEST ICE CREAM FLAVORS

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By: Grace Lopez

Mystic Ice Cream flavor selection sign by: Whoisjohngalt via Wikimedia Commons
  • VANILLA

Vanilla is one of the most popular ice cream flavors there is in this world. It’s a really classic flavor to choose. This flavor is a really tasty and very awesome flavor to choose and especially if you put good toppings on it, it will make it much better.

  • CHOCOLATE

Chocolate is an amazing flavor to choose. This is also a very classic flavor to choose but a lot of people love it. It’s a really creamy fudge flavor and is perfect by itself or with toppings.

  • COOKIES AND CREAM

Cookies and cream is such a perfect and delicious ice cream flavor. What I love about this flavor is when it comes with cookie pieces inside for this ice cream. I would choose to eat it alone but you can do whatever you want.

  • COOKIE DOUGH

Cookie dough is one of my favorite ice cream flavors to eat. I love that it comes with cookie dough pieces that you can just eat and the sweetness is just really good, so if you really like really sweet ice cream I would definitely recommend this one.

  • NEAPOLITAN

Neapolitan is such a good combination of ice cream if you would like to try all in one. I really like this flavor because you can taste all the flavors, strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate, in just one lick. This flavor is also really popular and is a really great combination.

  • CHOCOLATE CHIP

Chocolate chip are also a really popular flavor to a lot of little kids because they really like the chocolate chips inside. This flavor is also a really good chocolate and sweet flavor for any one who likes those types of flavors combined.

  • MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP

Mint chocolate chip is personally not one of my favorite types of ice cream but a lot of people really enjoy the minty flavor combined with the sweetness of the chocolate, so I would recommend the flavor to people who like that.

  • STRAWBERRY

Strawberry is one of the most popular flavors. There are a lot of people who really like this flavor because sometimes it comes with natural strawberries inside and people really enjoy that. So, that’s why they like the flavor of strawberry.

Travel/Food

Reviewing a hot chocolate recipe

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By: Max Cahoun & Norah Hoglund

During the wintertime, it is very common to have a craving for hot chocolate. But sometimes, you look in the cupboard and you don’t have any packets. Even so, many store bought hot chocolate mixes have loads of sugar in such a small drink. So, to prepare for the colder months, we tried a naturally sweetened hot chocolate recipe that’s much healthier. The whole recipe is listed below if you want to make it yourself, and here’s the link to it: https://www.recipestonourish.com/nourishing-honey-sweetened-hot-chocolate/

Review:

Taste

This was a really good recipe, the flavor of the hot chocolate was very close to perfect. It was definitely very chocolatey and creamy because this recipe uses milk instead of water, like some store bought hot chocolate.

As for the sweetness, it had a perfect amount and was not overwhelming. The honey in it is a very good sweetening option, because you can add as much as you would like to get the taste you prefer. We added a little bit more than the recipe because we wanted it a little sweeter. Another good thing about using honey is that it doesn’t add any unwanted honey flavor, it just blends into everything else because the chocolate overpowers it.

But what really makes this recipe stand out is the vanilla extract. It added such a good taste and a depth to the flavor of the hot chocolate. Comparing it to Swiss Miss hot chocolate, it has so much more flavor instead of just being overly sweet where you can barely taste the chocolate. It has the most pleasant flavor and you just want to keep drinking it until it’s gone. Our rating for the taste is 9.7/10.

Ease of making

This recipe definitely took more effort to make than a packet of store bought hot chocolate, but it was worth it and the taste makes up for the work you put into it. This recipe has real ingredients that you mix together instead of a premade version that is mass produced and isn’t very good quality. For a homemade recipe, it is so high quality and you wouldn’t even be able to notice that it’s sweetened with honey, and it is pretty easy to make, only taking 5-7 minutes. Our rating for the process of making it is 7/10.

Overall

Overall, this was a really good recipe. It tasted really good, it didn’t take very long, and it’s not unhealthy like store bought hot chocolate. We would recommend this recipe to use all winter and share with your friends and family.

Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups organic or grass-fed whole milk
  • 3 tablespoon cacao powder or cocoa powder (this is the fair-trade cocoa we use)
  • 2 tablespoon mild, light colored raw honey (we use this honey)
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

  1. Add all of the ingredients to a medium-size saucepan, starting with the milk first, then add the cacao powder or cocoa powder, honey and vanilla extract.
  2. Next, gently heat the hot chocolate mixture over low heat for about 5-7 minutes or until desired temperature. Make sure to vigorously whisk the mixture from time to time to combine all of the ingredients. (we find that this works the best once the honey has melted).
  3. As soon as the hot chocolate is warmed, it’s ready to serve immediately. Enjoy it as is or top with homemade whipped cream or marshmallows!
Travel/Food

Double chocolate cookies

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By: Norah Hoglund & Max Cahoon

Image created with Ai Generator

Are you looking for a delicious treat to bake? Check out this recipe for double chocolate chip cookies:

https://www.ihearteating.com/easy-chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/. These cookies are soft, chewy, and extremely chocolatey. But this recipe is not only delicious, it’s extremely easy to make. It only takes about 23 minutes to make!

You could make this for a family gathering, friend hangout, or just for a little treat for yourself when you’re feeling snacky. So next time you are craving a sweet treat, check out this recipe and enjoy!

Review:

Taste

Starting off with the taste of the cookies, the first thing to note is that they were very rich. They are basically like a brownie in cookie form. When they bake, they puff up and the top becomes crispy like a brownie. They were just the right amount of sweetness, and the chocolate chips added a change in texture that was very good. The melted chocolate chips in the middle was like a gooey mess but the crispy top added so much good texture that made every bite delicious.

Ease of baking

These cookies were relatively easy and quick to make compared to cookie recipes that have very specific and detailed instructions that can take longer. This recipe only took about 23 minutes, including baking time. It is a pretty standard recipe for cookies. One thing that was different was the recipe used melted butter instead of softened butter, which is sometimes more convenient because it’s hard to remember to leave butter out to soften. So, if you decide you are going to bake some cookies and don’t have much time, choose this recipe, it will save you loads of time!

What we would change

If we were to make this recipe of cookies again we would probably cook them for a little longer as we don’t like super super gooey cookies, but that’s just preference of course! If you like them to be a little bit extra crispy we would say bake them for 25 minutes instead of 23. Another thing we would change is adding ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt instead of ½ because these cookies were a little bit salty for our liking and if you like your cookies more sweet rather than salty you could do the same!

Overall rating

Our overall rating of these cookies would be a 9/10. The creator of this recipe did a great job with the measurements and the estimated times in the instructions are extremely helpful. We would 100% make these again and we also recommend that you try making them!

Recipe:

Ingredients

  • ½ cup butter
  • ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
  • ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¾ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
  2. Microwave the butter in a large, microwave safe bowl for about 40 seconds. Butter should be about 90% melted.
  3. Whisk the butter until it is completely melted
  4. Add both the sugars; mix until well combined.
  5. Stir in vanilla and egg until incorporated.
  6. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
  7. Mix dough until just combined. Dough should be soft and a little sticky but not overly sticky.
  8. Stir in chocolate chips.
  9. Scoop out 1.5 tablespoons of dough (medium cookie scoop) and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.
  10. Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until cookies are set. They will be puffy and still look a little underbaked in the middle.